Acts of Nature

she understood. I needed to calm her and I knew I was working against her nature. She was not the kind of woman who stands by when she feels violated, when someone has pissed her off. Even her subconscious was going to fall back on natural reaction if you push her.
    “Don’t let him take Jimmy’s necklace, Max,” she whispered, and the words stung me as much as they bolstered my resolve not to let her die.

TWENTY-TWO
    “Goddamnit, boy,” Buck said, his gray eyes turned to ice, as hard and cold as either of them had ever seen. He was staring at Wayne but Marcus could feel the anger roll out over him as well. “What the fuck was goin’ on in there?”
    Buck took a second to look back around the door at the man and the lady on the cot. It was a second Wayne needed to gather his voice, lower his fear, and swallow some of his embarrassment so he would not bring more of it onto himself.
    “She said she was a cop, man. She said it right to my face, Buck, and she wasn’t talkin’ about no back in the day either,” he said, his voice quiet but direct. Direct enough for Buck to listen.
    “Why?” he said.
    The boy looked at him.
    “What made her decide to tell you she was a cop?”
    He hesitated.
    “She wanted her necklace back,” he said, just as quiet, just as direct.
    Marcus let a rush of disgust escape through his teeth and Wayne cut his eyes at him. It was Buck’s turn to hesitate.
    “You gonna fill me in on that one?” he said, aiming the question at either one of them.
    “I found a diamond necklace at the last place. It was in one of them fanny pack-like things in that trashed-out room where we found the blood and I took it, you know, found booty like we said.”
    “And he was fucking wearing it around his neck like some kinda punk or something,” Marcus said, and the two exchanged a glance that was almost as cold as the one Buck held for the both of them.
    “She went for the necklace?” Buck said.
    “Like a goddamn piranha,” Wayne said. “I seen it in her eyes at the last second, man. She saw it and was pissed. I thought she was gonna take one of my eyeballs next.”
    Buck again peered around the door, and Marcus might have smiled at that one about the eye but for the deep shit they were already in.
    “And that’s when she said she was a cop?” Buck said, getting back to it. “After she ripped her own necklace off your neck?”
    “Yeah,” Wayne said. “Then she said, ‘you messed with the wrong cop this time,’ and she fucking meant it, Buck.”
    All three of them were quiet then, Buck thinking, the others waiting. Anxiety finally won out and Marcus said: “Let’s just fucking go, man. Let’s just get in the airboat and go. That lady ain’t gonna last long out here the way she’s hurt and that guy doesn’t even know who the hell we are, Buck. We take off, chances are they both fucking the out here and that’s that.”
    Wayne started nodding. Run. It had always worked before. Just run.
    Buck looked down and shook his head, back and forth, twice, slowly.
    “And if they don’t, Marcus?” Buck said without looking up. “If either one of them gets rescued by some camp owner in a couple days, you think they won’t look for a couple of shit-kicker Glades boys and a two-time ex-con with only one strike to go that been lootin’ houses and left someone to the out here? Especially if that someone really is a cop.”
    Both boys were dumb with silence.
    “And if the lady dies and that big guy gets so pissed he swims the hell out of here, they’ll bring felony murder charges against all three of us. The court will say she died during the commission of a felony. That’ll be your felony, Wayne, robbery of a fucking necklace,” he said, pointing at the face of that dumbness. “And our theft.”
    From their openmouthed look, the boys were losing their stupefaction and focusing on the term “felony murder.”
    Buck again checked the other side of the door. He already didn’t like guns and the effort of holding the big .45 in his hand seemed to have drained his energy. I got six rounds here, he thought. Maybe I should kill all four of them and wash my own self of it all. Goddamn it. Your daddy didn’t teach you nothin’, did he, boy.
    When they stepped back in I could see the change. The raised .45 was held a little tighter. Buck’s knuckles were white as he squeezed the grip. No more bluffing.
    “I am truly sorry, Mr. Freeman,” he said, and I almost jumped then at the words;